The year is 2037 and the world is plagued by drought, tribal war, vast migrations of people from the arid lands and resultant social and economic meltdown. Abundant supplies of fresh water are now giving Scotland a precious advantage in a much-changed Europe. But the threat is that New Europe may absorb our water-rich nation and spirit away the nation's hard-won freedom. Obituaries Editor Kal Gilroy finds himself in receipt of a strange gift from a recently deceased former girlfriend - the manuscript of a novel looking back to the Scottish independence referendum of 2014. He sets himself the task of unpicking this mysterious work. The piece of fiction bequeathed to Gilroy by Professor Jane Hill tells a very different story of that 2014 referendum from that taught in university classes or recorded in the electronic journals of the period. Down in the Glen Something Stirs, Jim Hewitson's first novel, is a fairytale with a difference. This lively and thoughtful thriller suggests that as Scotland prepares for the 2014 independence referendum behind day-to-day life unexpected forces will be at work. In deepest Stirlingshire something stirs in response to this potentially historic moment; the old magic lies just beneath the surface of our workaday world.